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Generational Dynamics World View
#59
*** 14-Jun-16 World View -- Heavy fighting along Eritrea-Ethiopia border raises fears of war

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • Heavy fighting along Eritrea-Ethiopia border raises fears of war
  • Generational history of Ethiopia and Eritrea

****
**** Heavy fighting along Eritrea-Ethiopia border raises fears of war
****


[Image: g160613b.jpg]
Eritrean soldiers march during the country's Independence Day (Reuters)

Heavy clashes have broken out along the border between Eritrea and
Ethiopia. Although there have been occasional exchanges of gunfire
ever since a two-year border war ended with a peace deal in 2000,
these are the first involved heavy artillery and masses of troops.

Eritrea's ministry of information blamed Ethiopia, saying on Sunday,
"Ethiopia unleashed an attack against Eritrea on the Tsorona Central
Front."

Ethiopia blamed Eritrea, saying, "Eritrean forces started shelling our
positions, including civilian ambulances, and we responded."

It's not known what triggered the new violence. Eritrea is currently
celebrating 25 years since it achieved independence from Ethiopia in
1991, and perhaps those celebrations triggered the violence.

Last week, the United Nations Human Rights Council issued a report
accusing Eritrea of repeated human rights violations, including crimes
against humanity. According to the report:

[indent]<QUOTE>"The commission finds that there are reasonable
grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have been
committed in Eritrea since 1991. Eritrean officials have engaged
in a persistent, widespread and systematic attack against the
country’s civilian population since 1991. They have committed, and
continue to commit, the crimes of enslavement, imprisonment,
enforced disappearance, torture, other inhumane acts, persecution,
rape and murder. ...

The commission has heard of no plans to hold national
elections. ...

The commission finds that the gross human rights violations it
documented in its previous report persist, including arbitrary
detention, enforced disappearances, torture, killings, sexual and
gender-based violence, discrimination on the basis of religion and
ethnicity, and reprisals for the alleged conduct of family
members. In addition, many of those subjected to enforced
disappearance in the past remain unaccounted for. ...

Eritreans continue to be subjected to indefinite military/national
service. The Government has recently confirmed that there are no
plans to limit its duration to the statutory 18 months. Conscripts
are drafted for an indefinite duration of service in often abusive
conditions, and used as forced labor."<END QUOTE>
[/indent]

Some observers are accusing Eritrea of starting the border war with
Ethiopia to distract from the human rights report. International Business Times and AFP and UN Human Rights Council

****
**** Generational history of Ethiopia and Eritrea
****


[Image: g160613c.gif]
Horn of Africa

These two countries have been linked since at least the second century
AD.

Ethiopia adopted Christianity in the 4th century, and was a tribal
society ruled by emperors until the 1800s. However, a split between
Ethiopia and Eritrea occurred in the 700s with the rise of Islam and
the Arab trade along the Red Sea, and what is now Eritrea became part
of the Islamic Empire, and later the Ottoman Empire.

Italy colonized the region in the 1860s, in the so-called Scramble for
Africa, so named because after it was discovered in the 1850s that
malaria could be controlled with quinine, England, Belgium, France,
Portugal, Italy, Spain and Germany all competed with each other to
colonize different parts of Africa.

In 1869, the Suez Canal opened, connecting the Red Sea with the
Mediterranean Sea, and Italian shipping firms became active. Large
stretches of Eritrea's coastline were acquired from the local sultans
and transferred to Italian control. By the mid-1880s, the Italian
army moved into Eritrea, displacing the Ottomans, and challenging the
Ethiopian empire.

In 1889, Menelik II rose to the position of Emperor of Ethiopia. The
"Italian-Ethiopian War" (1889-1896) was a generational crisis war for
Ethiopia. Menelik inflicted on Italy the most humiliating and bloody
defeat ever experienced by a colonial power in Africa. In the
outcome, Italy retained Eritrea as a Red Sea colony, populating it
with thousands of Italian settlers, developing road and rail
transport, but doing little to improve the lives of Eritreans.

Ethiopia gained independence, and by 1914 and the beginning of WW I,
all of black Africa except Ethiopia and Liberia were European
colonies.

By 1935, Eritrea was a colony of Italy, and Ethiopia had a new
emperor, one who had taken the title Haile Selassie, meaning "Might of
the Trinity," emphasizing the fact that Ethiopia was a largely
Christian country.

In October 1935, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini ordered an invasion
of Ethiopia, partly in revenge for Italy's humiliating defeat in 1896.
Mussolini announced the establishment of a new Italian empire,
including Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, under the name Italian East
Africa. Haile Selassie fled the country.

When Mussolini brought Italy into World War II on Hitler's side, in
June 1940, Haile Selassie won the cooperation of Britain in launching
a counterattack against the Italian forces in Italian East Africa. By
1941, Haile Selassie was once again emperor of Ethiopia. After the
war, the United Nations made Eritrea a part of Ethiopia, an autonomous
federal province with its own constitution and elected government,
something that the Muslims in Eritrea strongly opposed.

From the above description, one can see that although World War II was
a generational crisis war for Italy and Britain, with part of the war
fought on Ethiopian soil, it was not a crisis war for Ethiopia itself.
In fact, with the previous crisis war having climaxed in 1896, this
was a generational Unraveling era for Ethiopia. In such an era (like
America in the 1990s), there is little appetite for war among the
general population, except perhaps for quick police actions. Although
Ethiopia and Eritrea changed hands several times during the WW II time
period, the fighting was mostly between foreign armies, and did not
heavily involve the local population.

In the mid-1950s, the region entered a generational Crisis era, and
the fault line between Muslims and Christians began to inflame. In
1958, Eritrea's Muslim leaders formed the Eritrean Liberation Front
(ELF), consisting mainly of students, intellectuals, and urban wage
laborers. Low-level warfare continued throughout the 1960s.

In the 1970s, the Eritrean independence movement took another turn
with the formation of a powerful Marxist offshoot of the ELF, the
Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF). Haile Selassie was toppled
in 1974, after which factional warfare began to increase.

This might have led to a full-scale generational crisis war, but there
was a major development: In 1977, the USSR allied with the Ethiopian
government, took control of Eritrea's Red Sea ports, and provided
Ethiopia's government with huge supplies of arms, enough to suppress
the EPLF guerrillas. (This is what Russia has been doing in Syria for
several years.)

The guerrilla war fought by Marxist rebels against the well-armed
Ethiopian government climaxed in May 1991 with the collapse of
Ethiopia's government, coincident with the collapse of the USSR.
Eritrea finally declared independence. By that time, there were
500,000 refugees that had fled to refugee camps in Sudan, and they had
to be resettled in Ethiopia and Eritrea.

In 1998, a new border war broke out between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
This was a non-crisis war, with a quality very similar to World War I,
where trenches were dug, mines were laid, and bodies of dead soldiers
were strewn about. Of the 400,000 men who fought on both sides,
50,000 soldiers died.

A peace deal in 2000 ended the two-year border war, but it was never
fully implemented, and is still in dispute. There have been
occasional border incidents ever since then.

Both countries are now in the midst of a generational Awakening era,
and the rhetoric on both sides is heating up again. Expect political
conflict, riots, demonstrations, low-level violence and police
actions, but a full-scale all-out war, which many international
observers fear, is not going to happen at this time. HistoryWorld - Eritrea and HistoryWorld - Ethiopia and Library of Congress - Ethiopia


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Italy,
Scramble for Africa, Suez Canal, Red Sea, Italian-Ethiopian War,
Menelik II, Haile Selassie, Benito Mussolini, Somalia,
Italian East Africa, Eritrean Liberation Front, ELF,
Eritrean People's Liberation Front, EPLF

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Messages In This Thread
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by radind - 05-14-2016, 03:21 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by radind - 05-23-2016, 10:31 PM
14-Jun-16 World View -- Heavy fighting along Eritrea-Ethiopia border - by John J. Xenakis - 06-13-2016, 09:11 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by radind - 08-11-2016, 08:59 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by SomeGuy - 01-18-2017, 09:23 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by tg63 - 02-04-2017, 10:08 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Galen - 03-13-2017, 03:33 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by SomeGuy - 03-15-2017, 02:56 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by SomeGuy - 03-15-2017, 03:13 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Galen - 05-30-2017, 01:04 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Galen - 07-08-2017, 01:34 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by tg63 - 08-09-2017, 11:07 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by tg63 - 08-10-2017, 02:38 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Galen - 10-25-2017, 03:07 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by rds - 10-31-2017, 03:35 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by rds - 10-31-2017, 06:33 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by noway2 - 11-20-2017, 04:31 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Galen - 12-28-2017, 11:00 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Galen - 12-31-2017, 11:14 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by JDG 66 - 06-22-2018, 02:54 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by JDG 66 - 07-11-2018, 01:42 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by JDG 66 - 07-11-2018, 01:54 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by JDG 66 - 07-19-2018, 12:43 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by JDG 66 - 07-25-2018, 02:18 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by JDG 66 - 07-11-2018, 01:58 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Galen - 08-18-2018, 03:42 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Galen - 08-19-2018, 04:39 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by tg63 - 09-25-2019, 11:12 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by JDG 66 - 03-09-2020, 02:11 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Camz - 03-10-2020, 10:10 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by tg63 - 03-12-2020, 11:11 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by JDG 66 - 03-16-2020, 03:21 PM
RE: 58 year rule - by Tim Randal Walker - 04-01-2020, 11:17 AM
RE: 58 year rule - by John J. Xenakis - 04-02-2020, 12:25 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Isoko - 05-04-2020, 02:51 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by tg63 - 01-04-2021, 12:13 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by CH86 - 01-05-2021, 11:17 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by mamabug - 01-10-2021, 06:16 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by mamabug - 01-11-2021, 09:06 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by mamabug - 01-12-2021, 02:53 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by mamabug - 01-13-2021, 03:58 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by mamabug - 01-13-2021, 04:16 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by mamabug - 01-15-2021, 03:36 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by galaxy - 08-19-2021, 03:03 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by galaxy - 08-21-2021, 01:41 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by galaxy - 02-27-2022, 06:06 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by galaxy - 02-27-2022, 10:42 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by galaxy - 02-28-2022, 12:26 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by galaxy - 02-28-2022, 04:08 PM

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